In 1882, the New York Central Labor Union called for a "festive parade through the streets of the city" as it campaigned to limit the workday to eight hours. The march in early September, which drew more than 10,000 people, became the precursor of the Labor Day we observe every year.
Yet strangely, there’s a simmering debate about who came up with the idea. The AFL-CIO credits pioneering activist Peter J. McGuire, one of the early leaders of the American Federation of Labor and the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, for what became the national holiday enacted in 1894 by Congress and President Grover Cleveland.
In one of those you-can’t-make-it-up oddities of history, McGuire’s authorship of Labor Day is hotly disputed by those who say the real father of the holiday celebrated on the first Monday of September was a man who bore virtually the same last name (and an equally impressive mustache): Matthew Maguire, who was the secretary of the Central Labor Union and later secretary of …
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